CHICAGO — Caterpillar posted fourth- quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates and said Wall Street projections for this year were too conservative, lifting the stock market and bolstering expectations the world economy will escape a recession.

Shares of Peoria, Ill.-based Caterpillar jumped as much as 4.5 percent, leading Thursday’s gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after the company said net income climbed 60 percent in the quarter. Caterpillar said the global economy will grow 3.3 percent in 2012, up from 2.8 percent last year.

Caterpillar, the world’s biggest maker of construction and mining-equipment, surpassed analysts’ estimates for the 11th time in the last 12 quarters. Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman has spent about $11 billion to buy companies including Bucyrus International Inc. to exploit a boom in the mining industry after prices advanced for commodities including gold, copper and coal.

“Caterpillar is absolutely an industrial bellwether, especially in terms of infrastructure and capital goods,” said Larry De Maria, a New York-based analyst for William Blair & Co. “The signal is that there is a lot of uncertainty but there is a bit more stability than a couple of months ago.”

The company will see more orders as pent-up demand is released and customers replace older products, Chief Financial Officer Ed Rapp said. With corporate balance sheets now in “pretty good shape,” companies such as Caterpillar are more willing to invest in product development, additional capacity and making acquisitions, he said.

“Some of those factors that are impacting our business, our view of where things are, are going to play out in other industries as well,” Rapp said in an interview, citing automakers as an example.

Prospects for the world economy in the year ahead have improved over the past quarter, with the start of a recovery in U.S. construction spending, Caterpillar said. The United States, which made up 32 percent of Caterpillar’s 2010 revenue, will grow by at least 3 percent this year, the company forecast.